Real world learning: New Tech drives students to work in teams

March 23, 2009|By JOSEPH DITS Tribune Staff Writer

First of two parts INDIANAPOLIS -- White laptop computers cling to each of the high school students' hands like life support. No textbooks here. These Macbooks feed them almost everything they'll need to survive a day of New Tech studies. The students settle into their classroom at desks of four, their teams, and immediately tap on their keyboards. They warm up their minds as they do in every class, with a short journal entry. Today's topic: What's more important: friends or money? Students walk about and chit-chat. Teachers call it a controlled chaos, say it's natural, say it's how the rest of the world works. New Tech, as it's seen here, isn't just a dream at the South Bend Community School Corp., if the big money and building line up, to engage students and lift their sagging performance. This is inside New Tech High, one of seven high school academies that comprise Arsenal Tech, which used to be one giant high school with several brick buildings. Here in the city's downtown, it is ripe with all of the challenges of an urban student body in Indianapolis Public Schools. The curriculum comes from the New Technology Foundation in California. It's now used in six high schools across Indiana. Bells ring for the rest of campus. They mean nothing at New Tech High, where kids are learning to be workers, to be responsible for their own time, to do their jobs. Their client in the American Studies class is First Internet Bank. This actual bank in Indianapolis wants the students to write a one-page letter to its customers. They must explain how today's economic crisis compares and contrasts with the Great Depression. Bank executives will visit, tutor them on the banking world, then return to judge the students' final projects. That way, English teacher Emilyn Ruble says of her students, "They see it's not just for them." She calls two members of each team to her desk and gives them an article (on paper) about the two financial crises, plus a worksheet each student will fill out in pen or pencil about the article. American Studies fuses together two subjects: English and history. All New Tech classes are two-in-one. For English, Ruble says the class teaches kids to comprehend essays that are packed with information, which is big on the state ISTEP exam. History teacher William Gadd pulls some students aside for a "workshop." They gather in a circle. Gadd launches into a typical lecture about bank failures as the students pop their laptops open to the same Web site, a text on the Great Depression. This is what educators call project-based learning. When one project finishes after a few weeks, the class takes on another, a challenge to build, fix or analyze something. Teachers craft each project, then call on a local entity, like the bank, to play its role. The local partner doesn't always use the final product. Still, the projects demand loads of creativity from the teachers, and "the involvement is pretty powerful for the kids," says Scott DeFreese, director of Arsenal's New Tech High. Staying connected Students are building a roller-coaster in the Applied Math class (math and physics). Physics teacher Andrew Ringham has them swept up in a magical learning moment. How fast does the roller-coaster go down and up the tracks? The students know the mass, height and slope. Each team is debating over diagrams and numbers as they solve for V -- velocity. State standards require the students to know this. In another period of the day, Ringham's students will do the same project, but for now they quietly do interactive lessons on their laptops to first bone up on math at each student's pace. As students enter New Tech High, lead teacher Cliff Johnson says, "Their math skills are not where they need to be." The laptops don't do everything. But through them, the students find a complete schedule of their jobs and assignments several days into the future. They track their points and grades daily. They evaluate their job teammates. They prepare multimedia shows for their project finales. "There's no way you don't know what's going on," resource teacher Karen Ford says of the students. She says the unique classes meet a variety of learning styles and do so "without even trying." There is support everywhere, she says. Like peer tutors. And community mentors visit weekly with groups of four to five kids. Ford often comes at 6:30 a.m., an hour before school, to offer students help -- and they take her up on it, even kids who ride the bus (their parents will drop them off early). Other teachers regularly stay after school to help. Students get immediate feedback, seeing their grades and points every day via a Web-based portal. That explains why students often squabble with their teachers over points. Or why they ask a teacher's help to document points on the portal. "When it is in your face all the time, you care about it more," history teacher Leah Nichols says. "It's awesome. In a regular school, they usually don't know their grades until mid-term." On task or else At Arsenal Tech, the New Tech day starts with two 90-minute periods, then lets the students go for 2 1/2 hours to the rest of the campus to eat lunch and take two electives like gym, music or foreign languages. They return for one last period. There will be a full moon on this particular night, and it's showing in some students' behavior. The serious students tunnel into their work. For others, their studiousness of the morning has faded. More talk. More socializing. More need for the teachers to push them. And there are two fewer teachers, who are away at a conference. Overall, teachers and students still say there are fewer behavior issues here than in traditional classrooms. "We gotta remember: These are still kids," Ford says. The freshmen still are getting used to working in a group, she says. Ford says some students do become frustrated, which leads to a real-world lesson: "What do you do when someone is not doing what they're supposed to do?" It's easy to spot kids who are merely playing on their laptops or zoning out. "It is continual monitoring," says teacher Emilyn Ruble. "I continually walk around. They're really good at looking busy. I don't mind so much if they're getting things done." If students fall behind on projects, she'll ask them to stay after school so they can catch up. There's also group pressure. Teammates score each other on a "rubric," a grid of points in areas like content, collaboration and citizenship and, more specifically, for things like time management. The scores for a team as a whole will drop if some members don't help out enough. One student says that when team members goof off, it doesn't stop the other members from learning the concepts -- it just makes the learning less efficient. "Fire him, fire him," a girl playfully calls out in one group, referring to a power that teammates have if a kid isn't following the contract signed at the start of every project. Kids call it a three-strikes-and-you're-out rule. Teacher Cliff Johnson says there's a process that forces them to work together. "We're not going to fire anybody," another girl replies. "That's not nice." Staff writer Joseph Dits: jdits@sbtinfo.com (574) 235-6158